INDIANAPOLIS -- Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett plans to to recall possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax breaks from Rexnord if the company decides to move to Mexico.
The company announced to its employees last week that it had "tentatively decided" to move its Indianapolis operations to Monterrey, Mexico starting in April of next year.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Hogsett said he has offered to fly to Milwaukee to meet with Rexnord leaders about what it would take to keep them in the state. He said that although he has not received an answer, he remains optimistic about a meeting and saving jobs.
"If the decision is made to move those jobs to Mexico, then the company understands that I will use every available resource to call back those incentives," said Hogsett.
The city is yet to tally up the total of those tax breaks but the mayor said he believes they are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Before that meeting can take place, Rexnord and Union leaders will have to meet. That meeting has not been set and may not happen for several weeks.
From there, the mayor says we should learn more about the factors behind the possible move to Mexico.
Hogsett said the city will employ a full time job recovery coordinator to help both Rexnord and Carrier employees find work and training.
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Carrier announced in February that 1,400 jobs from their west-side manufacturing plant would be moving to Monterrey. A video of the announcement went viral, triggering outrage from as high up as GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. It also became the focus of multiple Call 6 Investigations, prompting special reports. You can find all of those stories here.
The state says there are currently 100,000 jobs to be filled.
But the leader of EmployIndy said although she's aware of those jobs, they will not all pay as much as what current Rexnord and Carrier employees are used to making.
"They're going to have challenges finding a commiserate wage with only a high school degree," said Angela Carr Klitzsch, Employ Indy President and CEO "If they have post secondary education I think we'll be able to employ them and find them opportunities at a wage that is commiserate and a benefit level that is commiserate with what they make now."
The city's task force is working to identify all of those open jobs and the training required to fill them.
